Columbus testing change in emergency runs

Lucas Sullivan, The Columbus Dispatch

Friday

Aug 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2013 at 8:55 AM

Rising demand from an increasing population has prompted the Columbus Fire Division to consider sending fewer paramedics to less-serious calls. Fire Chief Greg Paxton said this week that the division has begun a pilot study involving a pair of ambulances at two of the city's busiest fire stations to determine whether reducing the number of paramedics and fire vehicles that respond to low-priority emergencies such as a broken bone or injured back will reduce overtime costs and fix the shortage of paramedics.

Rising demand from an increasing population has prompted the Columbus Fire Division to consider sending fewer paramedics to less-serious calls.

Fire Chief Greg Paxton said this week that the division has begun a pilot study involving a pair of ambulances at two of the city’s busiest fire stations to determine whether reducing the number of paramedics and fire vehicles that respond to low-priority emergencies such as a broken bone or injured back will reduce overtime costs and fix the shortage of paramedics.

The idea: Reducing the number of paramedics who respond to a routine call would allow the division to disperse medics elsewhere, providing better service to more residents and reducing overtime costs.

About 84 percent of the roughly 150,000 runs the Fire Division made last year were nonfire emergency runs. Of those 125,000 runs, nine out of 10 were considered basic ones, or responses to calls such as a broken arm, sting, headache, hurt back or dislocation in which the patient is not in mortal danger.

The number of those types of runs continues to increase year after year, and last year staffing those runs costs taxpayers about $90 million and accounted for a majority of the division’s $5.5 million in overtime pay, according to city budget documents.

The costs are related to the Fire Division’s requirement that responses include at least one ambulance with two paramedics on board and sometimes an engine of four firefighters, including at least one paramedic.

The pilot program at Station 17 near the Hollywood Casino and Station 6 in the Northland neighborhood reduces the response for basic runs to one vehicle with a paramedic and an emergency medical technician. Not all firefighters are paramedics, jobs that require more training and certification.

The lower-staffing model has been adopted by many cities across the country, including Cincinnati and Dayton. The latter city also uses part-time EMTs.

“This is not a reduction in service,” Paxton said. “We want to evaluate a system that hasn’t been reviewed in 17 years to make sure we are dispatching the appropriate number of paramedics to the appropriate level of emergency.”

Cincinnati Fire Chief Richard Braun said his department switched to the new model because the old one, which was like the system Columbus uses, was inefficient.

“Our new system gives the level of service the public needs with normal response times,” he said. “We actually made budgetary gains because we were able to increase our EMS billing.”

Columbus firefighters union president Jack Reall said he considers the program “an experiment” and would not support a wholesale change to the division’s response system.

“These medics will have to respond to high-risk incidents, for example, a heart attack that requires an IV be established and an EKG read and drugs pushed, and those are paramedic-level skills,” he said. “If this is a one paramedic and EMT responding instead of a two-paramedic system, it will reduce the level of service ... and no one can dispute that.”

Union officials spoke out against the plan last week on Twitter and Facebook. They said it would eliminate paramedics through attrition.

A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety said Director Mitchell J. Brown is supportive of the pilot program and of examining new practices.

Paxton said he has to see the results of the study before deciding what will happen.

“This is just a pilot program on two (ambulances),” he said. “It might not even be something we implement because we need to look at the numbers.”

lsullivan@dispatch.com

@DispatchSully

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.